Senate Votes To Proceed On Obamacare Repeal

The effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act will continue in the U.S. Senate after a procedural vote was approved on Tuesday. Vice President Mike Pence broke the 50-50 tie in the Senate after two Republican Senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voted no on the motion to proceed.

The vote means the Senate will now begin debate over what a final bill will look like. According to the Washington Examiner, Republicans are expected to debate repealing portions of the bill but different GOP factions want different things.

Republicans are expected to debate repealing portions of Obamacare, including its taxes, and the individual mandate that requires people to buy insurance or pay a fine. The party has been hammering out details for several months, trying to bring various factions of the party together regarding changes to Medicaid and whether the Senate bill would adequately result in lower premiums. Centrists are concerned about the impact that repealing Obamacare would have on the law's Medicaid expansion and on people with pre-existing conditions, while conservatives say that the Senate bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, doesn't do enough to repeal Obamacare and bring down premiums.

While the Senate will move on to debate, many agree that the final bill produced by the Senate will look much different than anything we have seen so far.